Due to the increasing number of new topics made by users wondering why their reviews were rejected, the management has decided to make this thread which will to go into greater detail than rejection messages usually do concerning some of the more frequent reasons for rejection. Keep in mind that just because your review may not fit one of these cases doesn't mean it didn't deserve rejection. This thread is not intended to be a "catch all", but rather an FAQ of sorts.

BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE: Be sure to save your review. Right now. Go do it. If you can't even keep track of your own review, don't come crying to us if it's lost in the server and you don't have a copy.

Also, if your review hasn't been accepted or rejected yet, do not complain about it here, or anywhere for that matter. The review queue sometimes gets very full, and takes time and effort to work through. Most mods have multiple duties (I do forums and the review queue, for example) and there aren't a lot of us to begin with, so don't get impatient. Remember, none of us are paid, we all have lives outside of the internet, so just relax. It's not as if there's a race, and even if there were, reviews show up on the site based on their submission date, not their acceptance date. Now, it does happen sometimes that the email notifications are messed up and don't get sent out, so if it has been a while and you want to make sure your review is still in the queue (which you will want to do anyway before asking about it here), go to "My Reviews" to see its status. If it's written "rejected" in red, click it to see the rejection reason. Anyway, on to the rejections!

If your review was rejected, it was most probably because of one of these reasons:

1. FormattingOftentimes I won't even read a review before rejecting it if I see it has crappy formatting. We'll return it to you with a note to fix it and resubmit, but it still takes time so you can save everyone some by doing it right the first time around. First of all, the most common problem I see is people putting giant breaks in between their paragraphs. DO NOT DO THAT. Leave only one empty line between your paragraphs, unless you're making a big break between sections of a larger review which consists of multiple paragraphs; then, use only two empty lines. A problem that has thankfully become less common is the dreaded "wall of text" in which no paragraph breaks at all are used. Remember, reviews are meant to be read; if it looks like shit and is hard to read, who is going to want to in the first place?

If you wish to bold/italicize part of your review, keep in mind you must use HTML tags like so: <i>italics</i> and <b>bold</b> rather than brackets [] like here on the board.

Also, there's the annoying problem of character encoding, with funny symbols popping up instead of apostrophes, etc. Sometimes mods will let a little of that slide, but if it's all over the place in your review it will probably get rejected. Now, this is an excusable problem but also a fixable one; try changing your character encoding to ISO standard in your browser's tools section (also sometimes under "View"), and if that still doesn't work, just copy the review into the review window and edit the funny characters out manually. It might be a bit tedious, but trust me, far less so than having to read it with "&%$" in place of every apostrophe or quotation mark.

2. Spelling and grammarYes, we do check your spelling and grammar and yes, we do reject a large number of reviews based on it. Use of a spellchecker should be obvious, but it shouldn't be an excuse to not check it yourself; be sure to proofread your review and check for grammar errors, and also typos or common errors that do not result in incorrect spellings (to vs. too vs. two, of vs. off, there vs. their vs. they're, its vs. it's are some common ones for example). If English is your second language, don't be afraid to ask people for help. If you're in doubt, LOOK IT UP. If you're too lazy to do even that, well, don't expect your "effort" to be appreciated around here.

3. Not enough contentThat's right, it's not just enough to write a review with good formatting, spelling, and grammar. You have to actually REVIEW the music, and do a decent job. That means describe what's there, draw comparisons to similar music, cite examples that support your overall points. Remember, don't just say "this is AWESOME!!11" or "this stuff sucks balls, don't buy it." Now, we don't expect every review to be professional-quality, but Amazon.com's standards are not ours either. Also, a very important thing to remember is we somewhat grade on a curve. If you're writing the 20th review for a Metallica album, be advised that our standards will be just a wee bit higher than if you're writing the first review for an unknown demo. We suggest novice reviewers focus on lesser-known albums as a good way of getting used to writing reviews, and only tackling the popular ones once they get pretty good at it. However, there are some things that can affect your chances of getting accepted aside from sheer content. For example, a distinctive tone, voice, or style; if your review is entertaining to read, it will have a better chance of getting accepted. That doesn't necessarily mean humor, though it can. We've seen plenty of reviews try to imitate UltraBoris's or Prozak's styles, but guess what: you're not them. Don't try to inject your reviews with gimmicks, be genuine. All of our best reviewers here on the site are distinct from one another, and that's not because they were imitating someone else. We don't expect everyone to be that good, but effort will be appreciated.

Remember that the structure of your review is also important; track-by-track reviews with a couple of sentences per song are not a good idea. Rambling, "stream of consciousness" reviews are not a good idea. Take some time to think about how you want to present your review; one that progresses logically and smoothly from point to point will read a lot better than one that jumps around randomly.

Also, finally, if you're hurting for content, remember these three things: describe, compare, cite examples. Most reviews can use more of at least one of them. The first two help convey what the music sounds like, the third is good for that too, as well as backing up your overall valuation of the music ("the riffs are really bad, like the one that begins track 1" is much better than just saying "the riffs are really bad"). This does NOT mean you should describe every note the band plays, or that you should list every single band that sounds like them, but try to give a person a good idea of what they're getting into; the highlights, not a second-by-second commentary or a comprehensive family tree.

4. The album you've reviewed is ineligibleNow, this one is fairly simple. We do not allow reviews to be put up for albums that aren't released yet but are listed on the site, because oftentimes bands will release unfinished or pre-production versions of tracks, and there's no guarantee what you're hearing on the internet is the final version until it's actually officially released. Also, if you're reviewing something that clearly isn't the final version of the album (a promo, for example) we will also reject that even after an album's been released. Reviewing MP3 rips of official albums is allowed, even encouraged with some of those rare albums out there (no one should have to shell out $100 just to review some obscure NWOBHM single). However, please make sure what you have is a respectable rip, at least 192 kbps, and if it's a vinyl rip that you understand that any pops or skips aren't actually a part of what you're supposed to be reviewing (obvious, but it has to be said).

5. PlagiarismDo not plagiarize reviews. I'll say it again: DO NOT PLAGIARIZE REVIEWS. We have some very observant mods and many more observant users, so whether you're stealing a review from an internet or print source, we'll find out. If you are the author of a review that has appeared elsewhere, it's OK if you submit it here, but be warned that you may be asked for some proof that you are who you say you are. Remember that plagiarism isn't just copying an entire review; lifting a passage or even a sentence can be considered plagiarism if you don't give your source credit, and even if your review was accepted, plagiarism will often come to light later and action will be taken accordingly (as in one notable case). Also, recently we have been forced to take action in the case of blatant re-wording of existing reviews, where the reviewer essentially took certain well-known reviews and rearranged the wording with an occasional original word of his own thrown in as filler. A tip: if you're using someone else's review as a guide for anything more specific than general structure, that's probably a bad idea. We aren't going to ban you for borrowing a simple term or phrase, but anything more than a sentence is too much, and even a sentence can be enough. This is also a no-tolerance policy; you plagiarize, you get no second chances. You get banned, all your reviews are deleted. In short: we don't fuck around with this, it's not worth it to try and get away with it.

6. Factual errorsIn case people were wondering, reviews are rarely rejected based on factual errors. We fully support reviewers' rights to their own opinions, as long as those opinions are expressed in an intelligent way, and it takes some really blatant mistakes to get a review rejected (calling Iron Maiden black metal, for example). Now, most of the time reviews with these kinds of errors are also lacking in other respects, so they're almost never the sole basis for rejection.

7. TrollingThis is a fairly new one, but unfortunately certain reviews have necessitated occasional rejection on this ground. Essentially, we feel a "trolling review" is a review written with the express purpose of enraging, pissing off, and/or slandering a band and its fans, with little to no actual quality review content present. Don't get me wrong, we definitely give reviews the right to express their negative opinions, we don't force everyone to "play nice". It's just that there's a line between a very negative review written reasonably and one written as a mere exercise in colorful insults. This is definitely a point we deal with on a case-by-case basis, and if your review has a lot of actual content, with actual description, examples, and comparisons, then it will probably be accepted no matter what. But if you consider "this sounds like a dog turd playing the banjo underwater during a Celine Dion concert" a substitute for actual description, you're either trolling or need your head checked. Don't let your enthusiasm to convey how terrible you feel an album is go beyond the realm of reason.

Finally, once again, SAVE YOUR REVIEW ON YOUR COMPUTER BEFORE SUBMISSION. I can't stress this enough. Even if your review is perfect in every way, it sometimes happens that it will fall into some strange angle of the internet and disappear. Now, once it's been submitted or saved as a draft, even if it's deleted or lost, it can often be recovered. Still, backing up your reviews somewhere else isn't a bad idea, either.

A frequent whine: "This other review is of equal or lesser quality than mine, and it was accepted! Mods should accept mine, based on my self-centered view on consistency!" Well, you're half-right; if you are correct and this other review is as bad as yours, we'll gladly enforce consistency, but by deleting it rather than accepting your review. Post it in Oven Fodder.

Any further questions on these subjects can be directed to this thread, but remember that providing a copy of your review along with your question will save everyone time; usually it's obvious why a review was rejected immediately. However, keep in mind that this is NOT The Review Feedback Workshop; go there for detailed advice on how to fix your review, once the specific problem has been identified.

_________________

MorbidBlood wrote:

So the winner is Destruction and Infernal Overkill is the motherfucking skullcrushing poserkilling satan-worshiping 666 FUCK YOU greatest german thrash record.

Last edited by failsafeman on Mon Feb 07, 2011 10:12 am, edited 10 times in total.

I think it'd be helpful for you to mention that a quick way to see if your review was rejected (this question is asked just as equally as "why?") by going to the album you reviewed and clicking "Write a review for this release". If your review appears in the box, then it hasn't been accepted yet; if the box is blank, then it was rejected. This is only a temporary way to check and it is still preferred that you check the email notification box in your profile.

I think it'd be helpful for you to mention that a quick way to see if your review was rejected (this question is asked just as equally as "why?") by going to the album you reviewed and clicking "Write a review for this release". If your review appears in the box, then it hasn't been accepted yet; if the box is blank, then it was rejected. This is only a temporary way to check and it is still preferred that you check the email notification box in your profile.

Added. Sometimes I forget the really obvious stuff (almost forgot to talk about plagiarism, for example).

_________________

MorbidBlood wrote:

So the winner is Destruction and Infernal Overkill is the motherfucking skullcrushing poserkilling satan-worshiping 666 FUCK YOU greatest german thrash record.

I just got my first rejection notice for my first review and I'm glad I got it, because it led me to look here and gave good feedback. I sure as hell am not a pro writer by any stretch, I just like to give my opinion on how I like or don't like stuff.

To me this means that when you want to make a new paragraph, hit enter once at the end of the sentence to bring it down one line. After this, hit enter again to bring it down another to bring it to the line you'll be starting your next paragraph with.

To me this means that when you want to make a new paragraph, hit enter once at the end of the sentence to bring it down one line. After this, hit enter again to bring it down another to bring it to the line you'll be starting your next paragraph with.

I recently wrote a review for the mighty Daemon (Dnk)'s latest album, and unlike before, nobody even bothered to get back to me and say whether it got rejected, accepted, or just not received...I wonder what went wrong, i spent quite some time typing it up.

Joined: Sun May 25, 2008 2:59 amPosts: 438Location: United States of America

Posted: Wed Oct 07, 2009 10:49 pm

Hey, I recently posted a Deeds of Flesh review of 'Inbreeding the Anthropophagi with the title 'Brutal Death by the Numbers', and it shared a title with a review for Decrepit Birth's '...And Time Begins' by Nokturn. I apologize for unintentionally taking his review title, and I'll submit the review again with a different title. Thanks.

Hi!
I sent a couple of reviews (Rage - End of all days & Opeth still life). The first one has been rejected twice and the other just once, and the reason is always the "formatting" (I checked out that the grammar and sintax were acceptable). Could anybody please give me a more concrete reason for the rejection? (I also divided my text in paragraphs and I think it's quite readable)
Thanx.

Post the reviews in the Review Feedback thread, not here. We need to see them to see what's wrong with them.

_________________

gomorro wrote:

Yesterday was the birthday of school pal and I met the chick of my sigh (I've talked about here before, the she-wolf I use to be inlove with)... Maaan she was using a mini-skirt too damn insane... Dude you could saw her entire soul every time she sit...

I'll just put an example and an outline of a review that will be accepted just that you use proper spelling and grammar.

[Intro Paragraph] Example:

I had my doubts on this album at first. I may be more of a thrash metal hardcore Cannibal Corpse growling kind of person, but I'm not all hardcore, I enjoy some nice relaxing metal music. This album really got me into Elis and is my favorite album by Elis. This alone might beat some of Lacuna Coil and some their albums. I'd probably say the songs Black Angel, Der Letze Tag, and Anger were probably my favorites off of the album and are probably the biggest songs that impacted me further into gothic metal.

[Optional Content Paragraph] (Describe the music) Example:

Der Letze Tag was certainly my favorite song from the album, the video was good and the song was excellent. Like how it has a nice beautiful sound with some heavy guitars and a dark feeling. Normally gothic metal is mostly based off of female vocals and keyboards, but this brings in guitars and drumming and has all the insturments including the vocals play a part in this great song. I certainly didn't put this song on my MP3 player for nothing, the song can really change my mood and how I feel and bring me out of the dumps, especially during school. If a gangster finds out your metalhead at my high school, they will really nail you hard in the head. Despite this I really just prefer to show I'm a metalhead, I dont know why, but I just do. I really like the mood swing this song can bring you, not a bad mood swing, but a good mood swing, which would be from down in the dumps to a good feeling. Really all to say except that Sabine did a wonderful job singing and everyone else did a great job on their parts.

[Optional Content Paragraph 2] (Describe the Music) Example:

Anger made me feel the complete opposite of anger, it made me feel happy, which really isn't a big surprise considering I am mostly a happy person, but like Der Letze Tag, this song can pull me out of the dumps. Sabine did great singing here and again, everyone else executed perfectly. I also liked the solo, sounded like something that Iron Maiden might try and pull off. That's really all to say about the song other than that it was great.

[Optional Content Paragraph 3] (Describe the Music) Example:

Black Angel also put in a dark sound and feeling into the song. Like most of the songs, everyone did a great job on their parts. This also really made a big impact on my opinion on the album. Sabine really did a good job showing off her beautiful voice. Drumming and Guitars were beyond excellent. Again, not too much to say here other than that it was great.

[Conclusion]: Example:

Like I said before, I had my doubts on this album at first. This entire album really gives me a good mood swing from shit feeling to happy. The songs had a dark feeling, and that was shown with heavy guitars and drumming with beautiful female vocals really gives that dark feeling, hence the name Dark Clouds in a Perfect Sky. But yeah, the emotion brought out is great.

[Additional Thoughts]: Example:

There is really little to criticize on other than that, it you ask me it was great, but their are other gothic metal albums that are just as good as this, like Karmacoda by Lacuna Coil was probably better, Shallow Life by Lacuna Coil was better and more.

[Closing Sentence/Paragraph]: Example:

Those were really my overall thoughts on this album.

I just decided to post this so that perhaps people wouldn't need to experience the pleasure of getting an e-mail the next day saying "Your review has been rejected" and to perhaps prevent a few people getting all because they spent 3 hours on a review to get rejected.

the other thing is that its better to say what is wrong with the review! cause I have a mail which says: "find out which of these problems are in you review" cause the content of your review is acceptable. its better to tell us which part is wrong. cause I was read the FAQ and all Rules before submitting my reviews.

I sent a review of Epica's "Design Your Universe", and today I received this:

Quote:

Sorry ThyBlackHalo, Encyclopaedia Metallum was forced to reject your review for for Epica (Nld) - Design Your Universe, for the following reason:

Submitted twice due to some glitch.

Sincerely,Encyclopaedia Metallum

Should I resubmit it again or should I wait? I didn'tunderstand what went wrong, I obviously sent it once... The formatting was good (I think) and the spell and grammar were checked with two different spell checkers...

(I'm a newbie so let me know if it is the righ place to ask this too )

It really does help if you write it in a word processor like MS Word. I had a few rejected because they were formatted poorly, because I had broken it down into too many paragraphs. Now, it looked just fine in the box where the review is actually submitted, because it's way more constrained width-wise, but when I re-examined it in MS Word the fail quotient became a lot more obvious. So, make sure you do that. You'll find, like I did, that they advise you to do it that way for a pretty good reason!

Hello, I wrote a reviev about Unida's "Coping With The Urban Coyote" yesterday. I sent in onto metal-archives then but reviev isn't there until today. I haven't got any message on e-mail about rejecting. So how long time is form sending the reviev to publishing it on metal-archives?
Or maybe I've done a mistake with sending? Is it posisible?

W1kt00r, a few minutes of browsing the board would have revealed the secrets to you. The MA reviews queue is far from linear and automatic, and the approval/rejection time varies from a few minutes to up to two weeks. And it's been longer in the past. And usually we do not handle them in "first in, first out" manner, but in a chaotic, illogical way.

It really does help if you write it in a word processor like MS Word. I had a few rejected because they were formatted poorly, because I had broken it down into too many paragraphs. Now, it looked just fine in the box where the review is actually submitted, because it's way more constrained width-wise, but when I re-examined it in MS Word the fail quotient became a lot more obvious. So, make sure you do that. You'll find, like I did, that they advise you to do it that way for a pretty good reason!

They also encourage that you save it for purposes of having it on a storage device (eg hard drive, flash drive, etc) so that in the unlikely event of the review being lost, that it can be recovered and re-submitted.

I'm not sure if this is the right place to type this but my reviews for Death Rituals by Six Feet Under and Declaration by Bleeding Through both got rejected for plagarism, even though both were taken from my RYM account. So yeah, is there someone I should contact about this?

I'm not sure if this is the right place to type this but my reviews for Death Rituals by Six Feet Under and Declaration by Bleeding Through both got rejected for plagarism, even though both were taken from my RYM account. So yeah, is there someone I should contact about this?

I found them on last.fm on the account of a 33 years old Pole. Care to show a link to your RYM account, so that I could (perhaps) unban your account?

Could there be a lesson here for everybody?

AlexMaiden wrote:

I wonder what's the reason of deleting "autothrall"'s Somewhere In Time review. It's because he gave the album 100? ))

Yes, that's the method of our work. We delete good reviews with favourable ratings on good albums just because we happen to feel like it.

I'm not sure if this is the right place to type this but my reviews for Death Rituals by Six Feet Under and Declaration by Bleeding Through both got rejected for plagarism, even though both were taken from my RYM account. So yeah, is there someone I should contact about this?

I found them on last.fm on the account of a 33 years old Pole. Care to show a link to your RYM account, so that I could (perhaps) unban your account?

After going through some of oneyoudontknow's split reviews I realized that some people will give each facet of a split (I.E. each band's portion) its own score, both within the review and on the score tab. I always gave my split reviews a single general rating. Is either approach generally preferable to the other or is it just a question of personal taste/style?

After going through some of oneyoudontknow's split reviews I realized that some people will give each facet of a split (I.E. each band's portion) its own score, both within the review and on the score tab. I always gave my split reviews a single general rating. Is either approach generally preferable to the other or is it just a question of personal taste/style?

The latter. Personally I prefer giving the same rating to the whole thing because you can't buy half a split, you're gonna have to pay for both, so it's no use for you if one side gets 100% when the other side sucks ass.

I'm not sure if this is the right place to type this but my reviews for Death Rituals by Six Feet Under and Declaration by Bleeding Through both got rejected for plagarism, even though both were taken from my RYM account. So yeah, is there someone I should contact about this?

I found them on last.fm on the account of a 33 years old Pole. Care to show a link to your RYM account, so that I could (perhaps) unban your account?

I'm not sure if this is the right place to type this but my reviews for Death Rituals by Six Feet Under and Declaration by Bleeding Through both got rejected for plagarism, even though both were taken from my RYM account. So yeah, is there someone I should contact about this?

I found them on last.fm on the account of a 33 years old Pole. Care to show a link to your RYM account, so that I could (perhaps) unban your account?